Metro Performance Glass (MPP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Metro Performance Glass (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Metro Performance Glass is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Metro Performance Glass
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Metro Performance Glass can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Metro Performance Glass, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Metro Performance Glass operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Metro Performance Glass can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Metro Performance Glass
2. Improving business portfolio management of Metro Performance Glass
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Metro Performance Glass
Strengths of Metro Performance Glass | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Metro Performance Glass are -
High brand equity
– Metro Performance Glass has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Metro Performance Glass to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Metro Performance Glass is one of the leading players in the industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Metro Performance Glass is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Metro Performance Glass is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Metro Performance Glass emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Metro Performance Glass has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Metro Performance Glass has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Diverse revenue streams
– Metro Performance Glass is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Metro Performance Glass a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Metro Performance Glass digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Metro Performance Glass has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Metro Performance Glass has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Metro Performance Glass staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Metro Performance Glass comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Metro Performance Glass has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Metro Performance Glass have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Metro Performance Glass is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Metro Performance Glass is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Metro Performance Glass has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Weaknesses of Metro Performance Glass | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Metro Performance Glass are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Metro Performance Glass has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Metro Performance Glass needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Metro Performance Glass has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Metro Performance Glass is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Metro Performance Glass needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Metro Performance Glass to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Metro Performance Glass ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Metro Performance Glass still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Metro Performance Glass has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Metro Performance Glass has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Metro Performance Glass supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Metro Performance Glass is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Metro Performance Glass vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Metro Performance Glass products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Metro Performance Glass needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Metro Performance Glass has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Metro Performance Glass even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Metro Performance Glass, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Metro Performance Glass has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Metro Performance Glass needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Metro Performance Glass Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Metro Performance Glass are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Metro Performance Glass can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the industry.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Metro Performance Glass can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Metro Performance Glass can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Metro Performance Glass has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Metro Performance Glass to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Metro Performance Glass to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Metro Performance Glass in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Metro Performance Glass can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Metro Performance Glass to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Metro Performance Glass to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Metro Performance Glass is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Metro Performance Glass can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Metro Performance Glass can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Metro Performance Glass can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Metro Performance Glass has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Metro Performance Glass to build a more holistic ecosystem for Metro Performance Glass products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Metro Performance Glass to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Developing new processes and practices
– Metro Performance Glass can develop new processes and procedures in industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Metro Performance Glass can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Metro Performance Glass External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Metro Performance Glass are -
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Metro Performance Glass in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Metro Performance Glass in industry. The industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Metro Performance Glass demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Metro Performance Glass may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Metro Performance Glass can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Metro Performance Glass prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Metro Performance Glass
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Metro Performance Glass.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Metro Performance Glass has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Metro Performance Glass needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Metro Performance Glass needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Metro Performance Glass business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Metro Performance Glass high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Metro Performance Glass can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the industry.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Metro Performance Glass will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Metro Performance Glass Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Metro Performance Glass needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Metro Performance Glass is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Metro Performance Glass is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Metro Performance Glass to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Metro Performance Glass needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.